Fish story: Concerns about imported catfish

Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Published 5:30 am, Saturday, September 1, 2007

One of the staples of fast food outlets and restaurants featuring country cooking in the Houston area is batter-fried catfish. A flood of cheap, farm-raised Chinese fish into the United States has prompted demands from American producers that imports be identified on menus.

Imported seafood accounts for more than 80 percent of U.S. consumption. More than a third of catfish eaten domestically comes from Asia. Testing by officials in several Southern states indicates a high proportion of Chinese catfish contains antibiotics and carcinogens banned here. Because of rampant water pollution and overcrowding in Chinese fish farms, such substances are necessary to keep the fish alive.

U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., a major catfish-producing state, has drafted legislation that would require restaurants to include on menus the sources of their fish. Grocery stores have that requirement for all seafood.

Such a law would benefit Thompson's fish farmer constituents, who comply with U.S. health standards and cannot compete with the inexpensive imports. It is also in the interest of Texas consumers, who are unknowingly exposed to food raised under questionable conditions that could contain banned substances. Few of us would eat catfish caught in the murky waters of Houston's Buffalo Bayou, but Chinese imports can be equally risky.

As the Bloomberg Business News Service reported last month, nearly half of 94 samples of Chinese catfish tested by Alabama officials since March contained fluoroquinolones, antibiotics banned in foodstuffs in the United States. Another drug that turned up in the samples is malachite green, an anti-fungal agent that can cause cancer in people, given long-term exposure.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, tasked with policing imported food, inspects less than 1 percent of imports entering the United States. The contaminated fish sampled in Alabama had already come into the country and were on the market.

Many Americans would choose to consume clean catfish raised in this country under federally approved conditions rather than questionable Chinese imports if they were offered a choice. According to a consumer poll conducted by the Catfish Institute of the U.S., 96 percent of respondents wanted to know the country of origin for the fish on their plate.

Just as shoppers can now find out where the catch du jour at grocery store fish counters comes from, so those ordering off a menu should have the right to know whether they are about to dine on a fish laced with banned substances.

As Texas members of the House Agriculture Committee, Nick Lampson, D-Stafford, and Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, should back their Mississippi colleague's legislation. It's not only a matter of supporting an American industry, it's also a measure to protect public health.